100 Years of Solitude
by Logan Parker
Summary: They are a family, if perhaps a little broken. A series of snapshots of the lives of the Curtis brothers' and their friends from scenes throughout the book. May contain violence and language in later chapters. Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

**One Hundred Years of Solitude **

Scene I

I couldn't take care of them. How could I explain that to them? I was too young; I had goals and dreams and wants…

I just _couldn't_. I didn't know how to. It was one thing to be an older brother, it was another thing to be a dad. I couldn't be dad. I couldn't replace Dad. I wasn't too old to feel hurt and pain and confusion, and yet they looked to me. They looked to me to solve their problems and answer their questions. I had questions too. Who would answer mine?

College and football were a fantasy now. Even if I didn't get custody of my brothers, even if I didn't play father, I couldn't afford to go to school. Not now. Not with the funeral and no real job or experience. I had no support system now.

Still they sat staring, waiting for me to answer. I think about the years I've spent being a big brother and answering questions about how things work and why things happen. To them, I always knew the answers. I was all-knowing and now they were waiting for me to end the uncomfortable silence we were wading through like thick mud.

_What was going to happen to us now?_

What could I say? 'I don't know'? No, I couldn't say that. Not to their slanted eyebrows and red eyes. I couldn't erase their image of me; couldn't take away from them the last thing they held onto so strongly. Their big brother. I had to be Superman to them. Later, I could be human. Later, I could be a kid again, lost and worried and exhausted. But not now. I just _couldn't_.

"Nothing will happen to us. We'll be fine. I promise," I finally tell them. Firmly, concretely, absolutely. They had no reason to be afraid, I would take care of them. I had to, there was no choice.

They look at me and nod at the same time, passing each other glances as if to say _I told you so._ Like they knew, all along, that everything would be fine. That I would make it fine. And of course they knew all along, they always had. For all their lives they had known, and now was no different. We would keep treading water, we wouldn't sink.

God help us_._

_--_

_This story is going to consist of a series of snapshots throughout the lives of the Curtis brothers and their friends. Perhaps even Bob Sheldon and Cherry Valence. _


	2. Chapter 2

**100 Years of Solitude**

**Scene 2**

When I saw him lying on the ground, surrounded by socs, the adrenalin that I received before big fights and football games went into overdrive. This was my brother. A fourteen-year old kid who had lost his parents and was struggling just to keep moving on. And they had to choose him to be their entertainment.

Dally, Two-bit, Johnny, Steve, and I ran after them, throwing rocks at their disgustingly expensive daddy-paid-for car. I hoped with all my being that they would wreck and be strangled in their seatbelts and leather jackets. At that moment it didn't even matter that my own parents had died in a car accident. I hoped they died. I really did.

The gang and I retraced our steps and rounded the corner where my two younger brothers sat talking in strained silence. Pony smiled at something Soda said and I wanted to smile too. Soda could make fun in the worst situations.

"You okay?" I asked, or something along those lines, hating how gruff and uncaring they came out. Pony's eyes clouded over, trying to keep me out of his head, and he nodded. I knew it was a lie. I also knew he would never admit to me that he was hurt.

Since our parents death our relationship had changed drastically. He hadn't changed and I hadn't changed, but out positions had switched. I hated it. I hated not being able to be his brother anymore. Of course I didn't show it then. Instead I went on about how he needed to think. How he was never thinking. And yes, partly this was true, but partly it was my frustration at not being able to stop the beating before it happened. I had failed him, it seemed. What kind of brother was I?

Soda stuck up for him like always, and I once again felt like the odd man out. I was forced into this situation of being the guardian and that made me the bad guy. I didn't want to be the bad guy. I just wanted to be twenty. That was it.

I hadn't realized how far away from brothers Pony and I had gotten to be over the past few weeks that had turned to months. I wondered how Dad had always seemed to cool and in control. Pony never looked at him like he did at me. With a mixture of resentment and fear. Had I done the right thing?

I realized then, perhaps for the first time, while watching my brother hold a handkerchief to his bleeding head, that parenting was nothing like football.


	3. Chapter 3

**100 Years of Solitude**

**Scene 3**

Soda's snoring from the couch was so predictable that any other time I might have found it amusing. It wasn't any other time though, it was that time. At almost 2 oh clock in the morning on a Friday night. Just hours after my brother was jumped and now he was missing. I envied the fact that Soda could sleep through my emotional duress. Probably, I know now, I was over exaggerating. But hindsight is 20/20, and then it didn't seem like an exaggeration at all.

I was scared beyond all reason. In a way, I knew this. My brother was probably fine. Probably lost track of time in that dense head of his. But these thoughts did nothing to ease my frustration. My fear. Dear God please…just bring him home.

Sometimes, I had realized in the past, God didn't answer prayers. Like when our parents died and I prayed reverently that it wasn't true. It was true. Even through all the praying. This time, however, was different. My brother did come stumbling in at two a.m. looking like a battered animal. He was worried, but so was I. No, I was angry. I shouldn't have been angry; God had answered my prayer after all.

Still, my gratefulness and relief washed over me in a wave of fury. I yelled- loudly. So loudly in fact that Soda woke up with a confused but slightly serene look on his face. Soda was hard to wake up. Soda was always serene. Pony was nervous. He was biting his fingernails. Pony always bit his fingernails when he was nervous. He had reason to be nervous too. I was unsympathetic. Like always.

The events that happened that night changed my life forever. I wish I could say they changed me and I never yelled or got angry at my brothers again. But that would be a lie. I don't make it a habit to lie. Nonetheless they changed my life and I wonder now what things would have been like if I wasn't so damn emotional. If I didn't love my brother so much.

That's what I tell myself when the guilt becomes unbearable. I hit him because I loved him too much. I wonder if this makes me a child abuser.


	4. Chapter 4

To lose something you love is like being unable to move or breath or speak. It's like waking up one morning and realizing that the poles of the bed are attached to your wrists by metal restraints and your lips have been stitched up. It's like watching the water rise above your head and knowing you're going to drown and choking on that emptiness that used to not be there.

To lose someone you love- to misplace them in body or mind- is like watching _that_ person drowning, chained to the bed, eyes pleading for you to save them. But you can't. You close your eyes so you won't have to see. Or maybe so you won't cry. But it doesn't work.

You do see. You still cry. And they're still there- sinking further and further away from you.

This is what it was like those days Pony was away. Lost. Unfound. It was worse than losing my parents because this was my fault. I had killed him. I had hurt him. For days that felt like months and years I was trapped in my body- lips stitched closed- unable to remove the chains.

Then they grew rusty. Then I stopped breathing. Then I stopped swimming. I opened my eyes, and when I did, he was there. In a hospital, cigarette forgotten, staring at me with woebegone eyes. I tried to shut them again fast- so I wouldn't see. So I would cry. But it didn't work. I did cry.

And then his arms are wrapped around me and he's saying he's sorry and he's crying and Soda is passing side glances, the usual smirk playing on his lips. And I thought 'I almost lost Pony, just like I lost my parents'. Only I must have said it out loud, because Pony's arms tightened around me and Soda ducked his head to hide the smile on his face.

I thought, 'what's so funny'. But then I looked down at the kid in my arms, and I smiled too. Only I didn't try to hide it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Scene 5**

Revenge is a funny thing. A useless thing. A pointless thing. Revenge is something, that when achieved, brings along a sense of accomplishment. Like we've done something to be proud of. Like we've righted a wrong. Like busting in the face of a kid I didn't know would change the outcome of the past few days and weeks. Like screaming and cursing and kicking would prove to God that we were worthy of whatever fate we wished he would grant. That we were _worthy_.

So I guess, if I had to have a reason, that would be it. That we were trying to prove something. To someone. To God. To Johnny. To our parents. To ourselves. And maybe, for a split second, I thought that that was exactly what we were doing. And that we were winning. And that we were right.

And then I saw my brothers- fighting with anger they shouldn't have. An anger that no one should have because this world shouldn't make anyone that angry. And then I saw Dallas- fighting for the one person he cared about in the only way he knew how. And I remembered that they were only kids. That I was only a kid too, in some ways.

And then I saw them. The socials. The bleary-eyed teens fighting with anger they shouldn't have. Fighting for a person they cared about in the only way they knew how. And I remembered that these were kids too. That they were me, us, with different clothes. With different names and homes and parents that really were much the same as ours.

We were fighting for Johnny. For a sixteen-year old kid lying in a hospital, never to walk out again. They were fighting for Bob. A kid about the same age, lying in a coffin, under six feet of soil. I realized in that moment that they wanted revenge as much as we did. I realized that the kid who held my brother under a fountain of water in a relatively safe park was dead- and that information didn't bring satisfaction. I wasn't satisfied. I wasn't worthy.

Because this was not what Johnny wanted. This was not anything. Nothing but a fight between kids with too much time on their hands. Kids that were all battling against something. Probably that something was the same thing.

As the other side ran off with threats that "this wasn't over" and my side hollered "we had won" I felt like a soldier fighting pre-scripted war. The score was us one, them one, as it always would be. Because in a game where points equals human lives, it is sometimes hard to keep score.


	6. Chapter 6

**Scene 6**

It was night. We were still bleeding. We were still convinced that everything was fine because we had done something amazing. Something people would remember. Or at the very least; something _we_ would remember. We thought, for a few hours, that we had changed something. That we, a group of young, restless, naïve, kids, had made things right again.

That everything was okay.

For a moment- a second in time that was frozen like the lips of a person who was held under water for too long- we had forgotten about the three empty spaces in the living room air. We had almost given in to the temptation to be kids again. To be happy.

And then I choked on the absence. Pony, Dallas, Johnny. My throat constricted with guilt as I noticed I had put Pony ahead of our dying friend. For a whisper of a second I had almost even forgotten that Johnny was lying in a hospital, never to be the sixteen year old kid he once was. I remember thinking that maybe I had already gotten used to the fact. That maybe I had already knew what Pony was going to say, even before he walked through the door.

Even before he said the words. Even before the awkward silence became a thick quilted ghost that would haunt us forever. That I knew the very night I had hit Pony that it would come to this. That I knew the very day I met Johnny Cade that he would die long before he would ever become an adult.

Legally speaking.

Because bad things happened to good people. All the time. Everyday. And because Johnny was a good person. A great person even. A savoir. I thought about all those times our parents had dragged us to church to hear about what the Good Lord had done for us.

The phone was ringing. But I was thinking- Johnny Cade. J.C.

J.C.

Like Jesus Christ.

--

**Author's Note**: Since I first read the Outsiders, I always thought o Johnny Cade as a Christ archetype. After all- they were hiding out in a church. And what did the pastor call them? Angels?


	7. Chapter 7

**Scene 7**

It was empty. Unloaded. Useless in almost every aspect. Except suicide. Except murder. Except self-defense. In these areas it was perfect. It was the plan. It was the way he wanted it. And Dallas Winston always got what he wanted.

Except once.

Standing in the corner of a room screaming "Goddamn it" like there was no tomorrow. And there wasn't. Not really. Not for him. For him there was one last plan. One last stunt that would end his existence. At seventeen.

Seventeen is too young to vote. Too young to drink. Too young to go to war. But not too young to die- crumbling under an interrogating streetlight like a famished refugee.

Voices yelling in background to stop. To please God stop because he was "just a kid". But he wasn't. He was a little bit more than that.

--

**Author's Note: **Dallas Winston is my favorite character. This is probably the shortest chapter because of that too.


	8. Chapter 8

**Scene 8**

It has come to this. This is my biography. My testimony if you will. In the simplest terms possible. After all, I'm not the writer in this family. I'm the guardian. The protector. The leader. I'm the one with all the answers. And so I know everything. Most days anyways. But sometimes, every once in a while, I wonder how I ended up where I am.

Sometimes I pause, for a just a second, the hammer in mid swing- ready to fall. And I think "when did this become my life"? When did this become _their_ life? When did this become America?

Sometimes I try to remember life before this. Life before the streetlights. Life before the rumble and the church and the murder and hitting Pony. Life before being orphans. And I realize- with a rush of anxiety one gets when they discover their child is missing- that I _can't_ remember. That I can't remember when my life wasn't broken down into seven discombobulated scenes.

That I can't recall my father's voice or my mother's scent or the family vacations I'm sure we had. And I know, at least part of me knows, that maybe it's because I don't want to remember. That maybe all I want to remember is being an outsider.

Being an alien.

Being a Curtis.

Because at least I know, even after all we've been through, that we are a family. If perhaps, a little bit broken.

--

That's it. This concludes my writing-in-overly-emotional-drabbles fling. Now I'll finish writing the last two chapters of my one (and only) vampire story _Kings and Aces._ After that, if any of you have any suggestions for stories you would like to read- send them my way. I'll try to get them written for you. Thanks-


End file.
